The study was confined to these three areas. Research was not only academic inquiry but should develop a critical understanding of the new economic policy and use this awareness to exercise their civic rights. This social perspective guided them to conduct their research in partnership with local grassroots groups. They would monitor the impact, study and subsequently use the information to educate the people in the area and carry on awareness campaigns and guide grassroots groups.
Starting in the s, the U. In addition, U. SAPs usually include several basic components geared toward reducing inflation, promoting exports, meeting debt-payment schedules, and decreasing budget deficits. They generally entail severe reductions in government spending and employment, higher interest rates, currency devaluation, lower real wages, sale of government enterprises, reduced tariffs, and liberalization of foreign investment regulations. SAPs share a common objective: to move countries away from self-directed models of national development that focus on the domestic market and toward outward-looking development models that stress the importance of complete integration into the dominant global structures of trade, finance, and production.
The neoliberal philosophy of economic development revived the old precepts of economic liberalism, which hold that an unregulated free market and private sector are the engines for unrestricted growth, the benefits of which will trickle down from the owners of capital to the entire population. The debt crisis, which reached crisis proportions by , gave the IFIs the leverage needed to impose SAPs on the debt-ridden countries of the South.
With the waning of North-South private capital flows, indebted countries became increasingly dependent on the IFIs, which conditioned new lending on the implementation of SAPs. At the World Bank, new leadership installed by the U. Designed by Baker and Brady of the U. Treasury Department, debt-renegotiation plans also ensured that neoliberal structural adjustment became a prerequisite for debt relief.
Virtually all developing countries—particularly in Latin America and Africa, and increasingly in the transition countries of east and central Europe—have implemented or are in the process of acceding to SAPs. The economic policies dictated by the IFIs and Washington have greatly facilitated the process of global economic integration. SAPs have also largely succeeded inshrinking government budget deficits, eliminating hyperinflation, and maintaining debt-payment schedules.
But while government balance sheets may improve, SAPs have failed to establish a base for sustainable, balanced economic development. In their wake, SAPs have bankrupted local industries, increased dependency on food imports, gutted social services, and fostered a widening gap between rich and poor. To mitigate the harsh social impact of SAP-mandated economic restructuring and austerity measures, the IFIs have sponsored social investment funds.
This new programming—called neostructuralism by some analysts—reduces the social and political impact of SAPs through temporary job programs and other relief measures. Structural adjustment has also contributed to rising income and wealth inequality in the developing world.
Here's how various structural adjustment policies increase poverty: Privatization -- Structural adjustment policies call for the sell off of government-owned enterprises to private owners, often foreign investors. Privatization is typically associated with layoffs and pay cuts for workers in the privatized enterprises. Open Collections. Featured Collection. Abstract The decision to undertake a structural adjustment program usually comes at a time when a country is facing a severe economic crisis.
Item Metadata Title Structural adjustment in India: economic crisis and policy choice. Samuel, Ava Lillian.
0コメント